I started writing in this blog because I didn’t feel like I had any outlets where I could express my thoughts and ideas free from judgement or persecution. It worked great, and for almost two months I was able to freely ruminate on whatever ideas wormed their way into my mind. At the start of this year, I stumbled on something even better: Ockham’s Cafe. Every week, I get to converse with open-minded, intelligent people about a wide range of topics. This group so thoroughly satisfies my need to opine at length, I haven’t touched this blog in six months.

I am returning here now because of an article I read to prepare for this week’s discussion: Is Atheism a religion? at creation.com. The further I read down the page, the angrier I became! At first I scoffed at the author’s ludicrous statements. He is, after all, a Creationist … one of that breed of believers who take the Bible at its literal word regarding the origin of the universe. The problem was, I could see he was following a pattern and making a sort of sick sense that others might start accepting and parroting. So in anticipation of an angry rant at Ockham’s, I made a score of tiny scribbled notes on the article. However, I realized that the article itself was not the subject of discussion. So while spending 10 minutes blasting it apart would have been fun for me, the rest of the group might not have appreciated the effort. Instead, I’m bringing my rant here where it belongs.

I was reading an over-politicized review of the new movie “Catching Fire” and, as I often do now, I skimmed through the comments section to see how people reacted to it. One comment stood out to me as having completely missed the point.

Finally, Mr. O’Hehir, a well-thought-out review. And of a pop culture film, instead of the obscure European art films you love so much.

You understood the central problem behind this movie, and all the dystopian young adult novels in existence. It is bread and circuses…hot teen girls having sex (in a chaste way, of course) and facing danger that they never really have to confront directly. And like most movies about Evil Empires (the Star Wars films included), there is no explanation as to why so many people support the Dark Side or Darkseid, the empire or its supreme leader, because that might muddy the simplistic melodrama of it all.

Know how I know you didn’t read the books or actually pay attention to the movies?

I’ve been saying for a while now that I wanted to read the Bible. My motivation is 80% education and 20% snark. What I really wanted to do is focus on the characterization of women (or lack thereof). Reading it sounds awful and boring but listening to this guy has so far been funny, educational, and sometimes scary. Not scary because of things he says, but scary because of the actual words in the book. People believe this? Real people, intelligent people, buy into this? MY SISTER….she believes this. I’m not even finished listening to Genesis. The first book, the beginning….it’s all crap. Every bit of it. I’m so tempted to go back and start over and take notes on everything that’s ridiculous instead of just woman-related things, but I have a feeling it would all be too much.

Some progressives would argue that the Old Testament was meant to be more figurative, taken with a grain of salt. The OT is like 65% of the book though. So they’re saying the Bible is “the word of God”…except for the first 65% which is more like Aesop’s Fables? Get your shit straight, religious types. It’s either all “the word of God” or it’s all a collection of stories and fables written by men that may or may not (probably not) have any basis in real historical events. There is no middle ground, no compromise. You can’t have it both ways!

I’m officially giving up the fight. As of this week, I no longer call myself Conservative or Republican. It’s been coming on for a while now, really. At first I thought they were the best fit for me. Smaller government! Second Amendment! No filthy tree-hugging hippies! However, my eyes have been increasingly opened over the last year or two to just how distorted boy sides’ thinking is. I don’t fall easily in line with either the left- or right-wing agendas, but I found a third option: the Libertarian Party.

This blog was for my adventures in FFXI but I stopped wanting to talk about those a long time ago. Instead, I’ve been wanting lately to talk about current events and my views on them. The problem is, I don’t really have a forum to do that. Few of my friends and none of my family share my views on some of the issues that mean the most to me so every time I bring them up, it turns into an argument. I’m met with shocked disbelief, disgust, and outright anger. I love my friends and family but I will not ever bend myself to fit their ideals. They accept me as I am (mostly) and I’m glad for that but I still have all these thoughts and feelings and nobody to discuss them with. So this long-unused space will have to do.

I don’t even know where to start. I guess since the impetus for this idea was a conversation with Liv last night, I’ll use that topic.